Stephanie Pearce: That’s important to me

Editors note: This is the first column from the Craig Daily Press’ newest columnist, Stephanie Pearce. Stephanie is a Moffat County native who lives on a ranch in Hamilton homesteaded by her grandfather and works for Colowyo. Stephanie’s columns will appear weekly in the Monday edition of the Craig Daily Press, and we are very excited to have her aboard.

As this New Year is upon us, I’m thinking how I want this year to look. In doing so, I’m organizing the things that are important to me.

The trend seems to be getting back to the basics and I am all about that. After all, I live on a ranch and I enjoy “the basics.”

We milk goats, have chickens and raise some steers to eat. I take pleasure in baking bread, cooking large meals for my family, sewing, and gardening.

The question is what is most important to me?

Making memories with my family, that’s important to me.

To do that, I need to spend time with them. It seems so hard to make quality time nowadays.

I work an office job all day and when I get home, it seems I just want to have some “me” time. I run my daughter here and there and I’m involved in her 4-H and other activities, but I know I used to spend more quality not just quantity time with my kids.

When we first moved to the ranch, we didn’t have Internet or TV (we still don’t have phone service). Without all that, we always seemed to have some fun. We would play board or card games and my son would play the guitar while I sang.

But my favorite game we played, my nephew, Justin, came up with based on my favorite song by Alan Jackson, “Remember When.” We would sit around the kitchen table and tell each other our favorite memories.

This made the hours fly by and we would laugh and laugh at the stories they told, including some things I had totally forgotten about. Things we did that never would have made an impression on me really did on them.

Eventually I would end the game with happy tears because they just told me how much we impact each other’s lives.

These are the basics I want to get back to in the coming year.

It’s like when my mom and dad drove my horse and me all over. It’s those moments in the truck — having conversations, laughing, singing to the radio — that’s what I want them to remember.